Tiktok video: https://www.tiktok.com/@cattlemenfamilyfarms/video/7467698017559170350
Bsky post: https://bsky.app/profile/thetnholler.bsky.social/post/3lhrdl5nt222s
Articles:
- https://www.ft.com/content/bed728f5-e832-4c1d-8c1f-791b574ccb4c?sharetype=gift
- https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/06/trump-california-water-policy-farmers-00202751
spoiler
ft.com US farmers ‘prepare for the worst’ in new Trump trade war Guy Chazan 7–9 minutes
Aaron Lehman’s soyabean farm in the heartland of Iowa feels like an oasis of calm in the turbulence and tumult of President Donald Trump’s second term. Yet all that could change in a matter of weeks.
Lehman is bracing himself for the impact of a potential trade war hatched in Washington that he says could lay low the US corn belt and irreparably harm America’s standing with its neighbours.
“Farmers understand that trading relationships go up on a stairway, where you work hard to build them up, but go down on an elevator — very, very fast,” Lehman said in the living room of his farmhouse about 20 miles north of Iowa’s capital Des Moines.
“The long-term effect is that countries around the world will no longer see us as a reliable partner.”
It has been a turbulent week in US trade policy. Trump announced last weekend that he would impose 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, saying they were not doing enough to stem the flow of migrants and the illicit drug fentanyl into the US. Then after last-minute talks with the two countries’ leaders, he agreed to give them both a 30-day reprieve.
The same was not the case for China. The 10 per cent levy he imposed on all Chinese imports still stands. And many in Iowa believe it is only a matter of time before the tariffs on America’s northern and southern neighbours are reinstated.
The opening salvo of a new trade war has sent a chill through the Midwest. Canada, Mexico and China together account for half of all American agricultural exports. Just last year, the US sold more than $30bn in farm products to Mexico, $29bn to Canada and $26bn to China, according to American Farm Bureau statistics.
Suddenly, farmers were facing the spectre of retaliatory tariffs and the prospect of a full-scale conflict that some fear could decimate America’s rural heartland. Two large grain silos and an old shed sit on a dry, grassy area with expansive flat fields in the background under a partly cloudy sky Farmers fear a full-scale trade war could decimate America’s rural heartland © Amir Prellberg/FT
Farmers in an area of the country that has become a bedrock of support for Trump now worry that the president’s tariffs, though suspended at the last minute, have permanently damaged the image of the US in the eyes of its most important trading partners.
“We’ve gone from being a seller of choice to a seller of last resort,” said Mark Mueller, a farmer from near Waterloo in north-east Iowa.
Few US states better embody the agricultural wealth of the Midwest than Iowa. It is a land of vast corn fields stretching as far as the eye can see, the landscape broken by the occasional grain silo, hay bale or low-slung barn. Hogs outnumber people more than seven to one.
It is also Trump country. Although Iowa voted for Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, it backed Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024 in ever greater numbers.
More than a fifth of Iowa’s economy — or $53.1bn — is tied to agriculture, from crop and livestock production to food processing and manufacturing. It is the country’s largest producer of corn, hogs, eggs and ethanol and a top-three grower of soyabeans. That makes it particularly vulnerable to any downturn in agricultural exports.
“Free trade is the backbone of the economy in the Midwest,” said Ernie Goss, an economist at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. “What we have here is some of the most productive agriculture on the face of the Earth, and the domestic market is not even close to being big enough to absorb all the commodities produced here. You have to have international markets.” Aaron Lehman is seated near a window inside a room, wearing glasses and a checkered shirt ‘The long-term effect is that countries around the world will no longer see us as a reliable partner,’ said Aaron Lehman © Amir Prellberg/FT
The latest volley of tariff threats has evoked painful memories of the trade war unleashed by Trump in his first term. Among the most striking moves was Trump imposing duties on $300bn of Chinese goods. Beijing responded in 2018 by slapping 25 per cent tariffs on imports of US soyabeans, beef, pork, wheat, corn and sorghum.
The skirmish ended with the countries signing a trade deal in 2020 under which Beijing pledged to increase its purchases of US goods and services. But since then, it has been buying more grain from countries such as Argentina and Brazil, which overtook the US as China’s top supplier of corn in 2023.
In the last trade war, “a lot of our Asian buyers started developing relationships with soyabean producers in South America, and they’ve taken more and more of our market”, said Lehman, who is also president of the Iowa Farmers Union. “And we haven’t got it back.”
Not all of Iowa’s farmers oppose the way Trump has used the threat of tariffs to achieve a key policy objective — stemming illegal immigration.
“It was a strategy he needed to use to . . . get those countries to the negotiating table,” said Steve Kuiper, a fourth-generation Iowa farmer who grows corn and soyabeans in Marion County, south-east of Des Moines. After all, “a president has just four years to accomplish all he’s promised to do, so he’s got to get things going immediately to gain traction”.
Still, he is pessimistic that Mexico and Canada will be able to deliver on their pledges to Trump to strengthen border security in time. “It takes forever for these things to happen, and they’ve only got 30 days,” he said. A view through a window shows a barren soybean field The latest volley of tariff threats has evoked painful memories of the trade war unleashed by Donald Trump in his first term © Amir Prellberg/FT
The prospect of another round of trade tensions comes with American farmers already in a tight spot, hit by a fall in crop prices and higher costs. Net farm income, a broad measure of profits, was $181.9bn in 2022 but is projected to have been $140.7bn in 2024, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture — a 23 per cent slump.
“This [trade war] isn’t coming at a good time,” said Rick Juchems, a farmer from near Plainfield in north-east Iowa. “Commodity prices are low and the price of inputs like seed and fertiliser is going up.” Sources from the Iowa Corn Growers Association said many farmers had been producing at a $100 per acre loss.
Investments in new equipment are down, reflecting the wider downturn, said Juchems. “I’ve got friends who’ve lost their jobs selling agricultural machinery because of reduced demand. The lots are full of unsold tractors.”
Makers of farm equipment such as Deere, Kinze Manufacturing and Bridgestone/Firestone have shed hundreds of jobs in Iowa since last year.
Yet the prospects for farm finances could get even gloomier if Trump makes good on his threat of import levies. Fertiliser, for example, could become much more expensive, since more than 80 per cent of the US’s supply of potash — a key ingredient — comes from Canada.
But perhaps the most destructive effect of the tariff debate is the uncertainty it has triggered, just ahead of the crucial spring planting season.
“We’ll get by as long as we know what’s coming,” said Juchems. “But things are changing all the time. I’m sure the whole world is laughing at us.”
Lehman said farmers were trying to stay optimistic. “They tell me they’re hopeful cooler heads will prevail and this dispute will result in good trade agreements,” said Lehman. “But they’re also preparing for the worst.”
This does make me feel very sad though. Sad that our education system and culture let people like this down and left them so gullible. There are a lot of steps that have to happen before people make terrible decisions like this.
This isn’t excusing it but I am an Anthropologist and I can’t help but look at everything as an elaborate cultural web. The disease is way deeper than the voting populace. These people were lied to and believed it?!
“But a billionaire is already rich, why would they need to steal from us?”
What so many people fail to realize is that you only become a billionaire if there is something broken in your soul. Sane people retire to live very comfortable private lives, to enjoy the remainder of their finite time on this Earth with their family, friends, and hobbies. Sane people stop earning money and retire long before they reach anywhere near even a single billion in wealth. The one exception to this are those who create a product while of modest means and see it explode in profitability; see someone like Notch. But even Notch sold Minecraft off and now spends his time pursuing passion projects, rather than tirelessly working to wring more dollars out of his golden goose.
Sane people work to live. You do not become a billionaire unless your greed is insatiable.
Most people say that Elon Musk is the richest person on Earth. But they are wrong. I don’t know who the richest person on Earth is. But I know for a fact that I am wealthier than Elon Musk. He is a pauper before me. I have something Elon Musk has never had, does not have, will never have, and is utterly incapable of ever having.
Enough.
I was speaking to my grandparents, who are from Iowa, about Elon Musk a short time before the elections. We were discussing how he isn’t a good person and how the levels of greed it takes to become someone in his position prove that. They said something similar that opening quote, to which I responded, “It really makes you wonder why he always needs more, doesn’t it?”.
The discussion ended here.
I literally don’t even get schadenfreude from these faceless people being attacked by leopards. This country is being destroyed because people chose hate over listening to any source that wasn’t Fox News. For years… So now we all have to suffer?
When this country was about empathy love and cooperation? Capitalism is not that!
This country is being destroyed because people chose hate
Hate was chosen for them by the rich and powerful.
We all bear part of the burden for why the rich and powerful are so rich and powerful; we made them that way and keep rewarding their greed.
I don’t think I will ever get tired of this:
The gut reaction to to laugh at the way he voted and tell him hey gets what he deserves.
He made a great follow up video on why that attitude is pushing people like him away.
It’s worth a watch. I’ll link it here.
He’s also actively trying to engage in a substantial political conversation and may be interested in changing his vote in the next cycle.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT2BV9vyH/
EDIT: In many ways, this community is appropriate for all the people in it.
We talk down to anyone who doesn’t vote like us, we laugh at them, and hope for their suffering. No wonder all those people hate us and want to vote against the left out of spite. Seems like we did it to ourselves as much as they did it to us.
Also, it’s funny for all the people who make fun of this guy for not doing research, but 90% didn’t actually watch any of his video, especially not the one I shared.
Unfortunately the time for civility and reaching across the aisle has ended long ago. What pushing him away is the fact that he wanted to harm other people and suddenly got harmed himself and now is crying about it and wants someone to cuddle him otherwise he will be continue to vote to harm people.
Fuck him, he should suffer, he should feel ostracised, pushed away, hurt. That’s what he wanted, that’s what he actively worked for.
He could try to redeem himself and all that, but until he does, he’s the monster and should be percieved as such.Oh wow, the orange Hitler voter is having a crisis so we should have a reserved discussion about it to help him find his way…
Absolutely not. If you can’t see the writing on the wall, it is not worth the calories to explain it. As my late grandmother used to say “If you can’t listen, you’ll have to feel”. Hopefully he learns a lesson.
Nah, that guy’s an idjit.
Fuck him. I hope his entire family ends up living under a bridge.
It’s too fucking late. Who gives a shit how he’s going to vote next cycle? There will not be a legitimate vote next cycle. Pushing people like him away? It’s over. There are no more chances. It’s all a show from here on out. That is not an exaggeration.
What do you know that the rest of us don’t?
Presumably you have heard about the government agencies being shuttered, unvetted no-security-clearance ex-hackers being given write access to government systems, the three branches of government being controlled by the offending party, including the one that decides whether laws are constitutional or not, open embrace of fascist rhetoric, symbols, and traditional talking points, door to door ICE, election interference, widely reported foreign influence, widely reported billionaire influence, discussion from POTUS himself about annexing other countries, Jesus I could keep going for miles but it’s not remotely necessary
I don’t know how you get from there to “we’re never going to be able to vote again”. It’s only been 3 fucking weeks and people are running around like it’s the end of the world.
Those examples all relate to why we will not have another legitimate election in the US. We’ll be able to vote again. It just won’t matter. Elections take place in fascist countries all over the world. They aren’t real. You cannot vote fascists out of power. They have been given power in the US and they will now keep it.
I can’t see the future, and neither can you.
Nope, but I can see the very recent past, and all signs point to an already-captured government and the moneyed interests behind that capture solidifying their influence on public opinion through a similarly captured media and social media landscape.
“They both hate us”
So vote for an alternative party.
I know it isn’t easy, and the system is rigged, but what you’re doing isn’t helping.
If you’re voting based solely on info from tik Tok, then maybe you shouldn’t be voting.
As a warning to my own side: Mark Cuban is eyeing Bluesky. Do not trust him even if he’s saying the right things about Trump and a few other things about American politics.
That’s why I looked to Mastodon as a Twitter alternative and not Bluesky.
I was never at risk of siding with him on anything? Why would I?
He’s the least shitty of the Sharks. For some people, this is misinterpreted as being good.
Still a billionaire.
Must be the 50th such post I’ve seen in the past 7 days. Would people now vote differently if there was an election tomorrow or are they incapable of learning from their mistakes?
The guy probably has a room temp IQ in °C, I’m surprised he managed to keep his farm for that long.
The guy blamed Bidens government and not Trump in his video so no. He’d probably vote the same.
You know the fucking answer to that as well as I do. They voted for hate and would do it again.
Republicans would shit in their own pants just to make Liberals smell it.
Yea but not hate towards us! Signed, some white people
This is probably the 3rd time he’s voted for Trump.
Votes for Leopard, gets face eaten.
I got banned from Hexbear for saying that. Apparently I’m a fascist for wanting Trump voters to get their just deserts.
Hahaha 🤣😂
I would laugh if I didnt know how bad this is going to be now. Coorporations will completely own and control the food system and we will be eating slop that may or may not kill us and liking it.
This is almost like the Cyberpunk 2077 lore is comming true play by play
“Cyberpunk was a warning, not an aspiration.” - Mike Pondsmith
I dislike how the slow roll of economy coincides with voting cycles. These iowan farmers would get gutted now, but the whole impact of that would grow well over 4 years of presidency, and those dealing with it by them would not get credit for it like it always happens, and many would vote degenerate right again as they usually do.
In four years, these same people will vote against their own interest again because “Trump said he would save my farm after this next election”. While conveniently overlooking the fact that both parties will be offering to save their farm by that time, and only one of those will have actual solutions and won’t have caused the problem in the first place.
but remember, we’re not allowed to support the people with solutions to our problems because people on the other side of the world are committing genocide with american weapons.
I choose to blame the ones at the helm who ignored their base and chose to run a pro genocidal platform thinking they had an easy win, and not the ones conflicted about said genocide.
Pointing at a scapegoat instead of the ones who took the decision and still stand by it serves nothing.
Still blaming Harris losing on everyone buts yourselves, I see. So, how’s the democrats coming along on a cohesive plan to fight Trump?
Hello? Anybody?
FUCK THEM ALL FAFO
I for one hope Trump and team burn everything to the ground so everyone loses in the end.
I for one would like to lose slightly less.
To be honest, I have never understood why the “average joe” ever identified with Trump, whose whole point is that he is a “successful” billionaire businessman. Why they believe he’s looking out for the little guy is beyond me.
Probably one of a few things.
- always voted R
- one or a few, policies matter to them more than anything (abortion, tax cuts etc.)
- likes the toxic traits (owning the libs, bigotry, pro America and fuck everyone else)
- fell for the neo-con lie that conservative = good economy = better for everyone
- fell for the “we’re going to help the working man” Conservative lie
But most likely, imo, is that the average Joe is just way less politically engaged or aware, then you and your peers. They don’t see all the bullshit, bigotry, obvious lies, the way R policies will fuck them over. They just know times are tough, prices are high and “right wing dude said he’d fix it”.
how about just good old fashioned racism?
That comes under “likes his toxic traits - bigotry”
Because they don’t think of themselves as the little guy. No matter how poor they are, they’re always temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
I think people are reacting mainly emotionally (i.e. “I feel that this person can be trusted”) rather than doing any meaningful level of political analysis and that the attraction of many for confident loudmouth politicians is in part a reaction to a couple of decades of being swindled by soft speaking slippery suits on both sides of the isle.
(Politically Aware people - which I imagine most of us here are - tend to expect from others similar levels of being well informed about Politics and thinking it to be important, when in reality most people do not think, care or are as well informed about politics anywhere as much as the Politically Aware)
These things come in cycles and we’re back in the age when people are over-saturated with the “sophisticated misdirection and half-truth deceiver” type of swindler whilst not being innured to the “loud and brash liar” type of swindler, because the last couple of decades have been dominated in politics by the former kind of manipulator whilst the last time the latter type was dominant was almost a century ago.
That’s my theory.
I also don’t see how anyone could possibly feel like they trust this guy. He has a long history as a real estate grifter tax evader, and a reputation for stiffing contractors. If you ever listen to him speak, it shouldn’t take more than a couple sentences to realize it’s all BS. There’s literally decades of news article on him being a con man Plus, doesn’t anyone remember his disaster of a first term?
I reckon some people are naive to that specific kind of scammer, others are stupid, yet others don’t trust the sources of that information that he’s a “real estate grifter tax evader, and a reputation for stiffing contractors” and some might even think “yeah, but he won’t do it to us” - so a mix of stupidity and wishful thinking.
As the saying goes (in reverse order) “You can’t deceive everybody all of the time but you can deceive some people all of the time or all people some of the time”.
I mean, even in real estate his grifter’s grift was still working so there were still people falling for it.
hes a clown. the whole bread and circus thing.
Same… I have always known Trump to be an idiot… literally the stereotypical kid whose Dad is ashamed of because he decided to clown around and never accomplished anything given all the opportunities
I think it has to do with the conservative tendency to see a natural hierarchy to humanity.
(begin sarcasm)
Obviously, rando leopard victim currently under discussion is a member of the upper echelon of that human hierarchy. They are confused by the same things as Trump, they hate the same people as him, and they see the same TrRuTh about the world as him.
Surely, those are enough “good people” attributes that any day now they will get swept along on the Trump train and will be out of the trailer and sitting on a golden shitter before you know it. He might even let them push the button that takes food stamps away from a brown skinned single mother!
Or, and hey let’s be fair, maybe some of them are smarter than that. They know that no Aryan Dividends are coming their way. But they have the integrity to tough it out while the other “good” people in charge spend all their energy hurting the subhuman garbage that deserves it most. That is obviously more important than education or human rights or whatever the limp-wristed liberal cucks are crying about today.
The money is just part of the deal when you’re one of the master race-- err, no, I mean when you’re one of the good people, the REAL Americans. It’s not like you have to be BORN already having the money or just win the lottery some other way, lol.
These people are the common clay of the land.
Why they believe he was ever a successful businessman is beyond me…
The guy is a fucking rich kid moron.
He had what, 5 bankruptcy? Very successful
6 bankruptcies. He even managed to bankrupt a casino, which is basically a license to print money.
I have never understood why the “average joe” ever identified with Trump
A major reason for the vehement support the right receives is trying to control what people can say.
The left has itself to blame for its overreaching censorship in online spaces for why so many people feel more comfortable being part of the right.
You can’t just tell the “average joe” that a man is a woman and vice-versa, then ban him for saying otherwise and expect him to stay on your side.
I think you’re right but no one wants to hear it. Everyone’s extremely polarized and people seem to be happy to point the finger and say “you voted wrong” with smug arrogance. I bet a lot of Trump voters felt like they didn’t have a better choice.
Can you explain what you mean with “censorship in online spaces from the left”? As far as I know, most of our digital infrastructure is in the hand of MAGA right wing billionaires (X, Facebook, Instagram) and other people who are not really known as left (Reddit, TikTok, Google/YouTube). Most of our big social networks are not doing any left wing censorship. YouTube will demonitize you when you swear enough, because advertisers don’t like that. Musk will censor you when you disagree with his politics. Trump will fire you if you mention certain words. But that is right wing censorship. So where are those spaces where the left is censoring everything that are pushing people to vote for the right?
You can’t just tell the “average joe” that a man is a woman and vice-versa, then ban him for saying otherwise and expect him to stay on your side.
You think everyone is a transphobic bigot and that’s what swayed the vote?
There’s no helping people like you.
Rural people generally on average mistrust city people. City person shows up one day and gives them riches beyond their wildest imaginations, two hundred dollars and a luxury import chocolate. Other city people say “don’t trust these gifts, that guy is a known con artist”. Rural people didn’t grow up in an environment where scammers could just get away with it, cuz they’d get beat up by the other 80 people in the town that all knew them.
They don’t have the defenses mechanism of skepticism built in from day 1. They often do not understand the difference between the law as written vs as intended, because strict interpretation of the rules is not required for a small society of people that all generally know teachers other to function.
Where do they think Trump is from?
Better late than never. But better never late.
